Gratuitous Cute Shot: Baby Seal Shelters from Storm on Car Dashboard

When Smartie the seal washed up on a stormy beach in Scotland, he found an unlikely place to weather the storm: A car dashboard!

-Lucia Peters

Yes, this is a picture of a seal. Yes, he is weathering a storm by sitting on the dashboard of a car. All together, now: Awwwww!

According to the UK Daily Mail, Smartie the seal, who is six months old and presumably named either for his surprising smarts or after an M&Ms-like British candy, was first found wandering around a truck parking lot at a ferry terminal in Dumfries, Scotland. There was a particularly nasty storm going on, and Smartie had emerged from the choppy waters to find somewhere to hole up and wait out the storm. Since a truck parking lot isn’t the safest place for a baby seal to be, workers at the terminal tried their best to get Smartie back in the water; however, the seal had other ideas. Eventually one of the staff members put Smartie in the trunk of his car to keep him safe while they waited for rescuers from the Scottish SPCA arrived.

But Smartie, it turns out, is a tricky one. By pushing down one of the back seats through the trunk, he escaped and wiggled his way to the car’s warm, cozy dashboard. Said SPCA spokesman Alisatir Hill, “'[Smartie] is clearly a very smart seal, as he ended up watching the storm out the windscreen of the car from his warm, dry spot on the dash.” Talk about a front row seat!

The seal pup is now at the National Wildlife Rescue Center near Alloa, Scotland; happily, he’s well on his way to recover. Center manager Colin Seddonstated, “Smartie was weak and dehydrated when he first arrived, but he’s now doing really well in our care and already feeding himself.” He’s currently chilling out in his own seal pen, which has both a wet and a dry area for him; once he’s older and bigger, he’ll get moved to one of the center’s outdoor pools so he can get used to interacting with other seals and swimming and feeding in deeper water. “We hope to return Smartie to the wild in about a month’s time,” Seddon continued, “but only when we’re sure he’s fully fit and able to fend for himself.”

Maybe he can go hang out with that seal from New Zealand who carried out the cutest home invasion ever. We bet they’d be best friends!